Big Strong U

We are always excited to welcome Mr. Hayward Suggs, as a guest writer for our blog.  If you missed it, check out his article An Oscar Story where he highlights the Oscar-winning film Hidden Figures and proclaims that

Mr Suggs also introduced us to Ms. Valerie Bowman who has been sharing her wealth building, financial planning expertise with her clients for over 15 years. Ms. Bowman is a financial advisor, an award winning motivational speaker, and author.

Today, Hayward will allow us to drop-in on some of his conversation with Corey Buckner, Founder and CEO of Big Strong U.  Corey has personally unlocked the door to health, wellness and success. We are excited to share this with you!

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Hayward Suggs:

Where did you get the name Big Strong U?

Corey Buckner:

To be honest, it just kind of popped in my head.  I actually started building on this company under a different name, and began to hate it.  So I put the entire project on hold because I felt the name wasn’t powerful enough to convey the meaning and purpose of this company to my audience.  I was literally driving one day to take care of some business and it just popped in my head and I was like “you know what…I like that.  Let’s run with it.” It’s one of those moments when you run home, get on the internet, check for URLs and Google search it, because you assume that somebody else has already used this name.  Once I saw it was free I got started immediately.

Hayward Suggs:

How would you describe Big Strong U to your clients?

Corey Buckner:

“Although right now the biggest notice Big Strong U is getting is the clothing, it’s a whole health brand.  It’s fitness and the clothing.”

My biggest market is for people who are trying to “get your fit together”.  People who are still working to meet their health goals, but just aren’t there yet.  They’re curious about fitness.  They have desire. They aren’t necessarily happy about their overall fitness but trying to get their fit together.  The other market is for people who are vegan curious.  It’s not a vegan comp
any, being a vegan is a huge part of my lifestyle, which is reflected in a lot of the health information I am able to share with my clients.

I probably get the most calls and feedback on the vegan diet and how it plays a role in weight loss and overall health.  People see the food options and say “that doesn’t look like vegan to me”.  Most people think the vegan diet consists of bland, boring plates of lettuce and twigs. But, vegan food is as exciting and varied as meat-based diets once you learn about that many… many vegan foods available.  People are intrigued and want to know if veganism can help them make the progress they want to make.

Then I have clients who are already fit, living the lifestyle they want to live and want to support and represent Big Strong U.

Hayward Suggs:

How important of a role is nutrition in what you are offering your clients?

Corey Buckner:

If we are talking about just the health side of it, it’s ½ of it.  If we are talking about health, and providing the clients with some nice clothes on top of it, then it’s 1/3 of it.  You can be strong, you can be big, you can look nice, but once you add that nutrition element to it, you actually become healthy.  “Lifting weights and dressing nice, doesn’t make you healthy and it never will”.  The only thing that really makes you healthy is getting the proper nutrition in your body.  Then you actually do get bigger and stronger and you actually look better in your clothing.  So, it’s part of the 3 headed monster that allows us to see health and fitness in addition to looking and feeling good.

Hayward Suggs:

For the reader, can you walk through how the process starts with a client and how it evolves?

Corey Buckner: 

It’s a very informal process.  I don’t have an intake.  I make myself available via the website Bigstrongu.com, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and things like that.  Generally, at the moment, I may have someone on the internet that has been curious, looking at the pictures on the website, reading the information every now and then, slowly gaining interest. Finally they take a leap and reach out to me. I actually had a friend from high school reach out to me.

From that moment a genuine conversation began.  I talked to him about where he is and what his health, nutrition, and fitness looks like today and where is he trying to go?  This is typically how the relationship starts with a client.  From that point on, depending on the commitment from the client, we began a formal or informal dialogue.  Generally I have a person who see’s my progress.  They see what I’ve done with other people, and they approach me because they are encouraged and inspired, and just need some support around reaching their goals.  Informally, we can just chat and talk about nutrition and fitness.  Formally, I schedule time to either meet with the client in person, or over the phone, whichever works for them.

Hayward Suggs:

Is there a typical client that is successful?

Corey Buckner:

There are two factors.  One is that they are unhappy enough with their progress or lack thereof and ready to reach out to me to talk about it.  Two, they are curious enough to see what they can accomplish.  Some type of curiosity has sparked in them to where they feel they can do better health wise and they are willing to reach out for additional support and they find me.  You have to be either unhappy or curious and to be honest, in my observation; unhappiness is a bigger motivator than curiosity.

Hayward Suggs:

There are so many fitness instructors, organizations, individuals that focus on health and nutrition.  What makes you unique?

Corey Buckner:

One, I am not trying to be an expert or nutritionist.  I’m just not interested in that.  I am more interested in the sociology of health and  fitness.  There is no shortage on health gurus and instructors.  The world will never be short on that.  The problem is that people don’t understand the sociological element that causes us to be unhealthy.  There are social factors involved.

 There are social factors contributing to their weight gain.  Instead of going to the grocery store and cooking a real meal they are going to the drive thru and purchasing a hamburger with 300 calories in it.  It’s not a lot of food but it is definitely a lot of calories.  So you have to ask yourself, “Why are we making these decisions?”  Is it the marketing?  Is it that we are too busy in our day to day activities that we don’t have time to focus on diet and cardio regimen?  Is it that we aren’t active enough?

These are all true.  Some people just don’t walk.  They get out of bed and walk to the bathroom.  They get dressed and walk to their car to drive to work.  They walk from the parking lot and sit at their desk.  They get off of work, drive home with their convenient meal, walk to the couch, and watch TV for the remainder of the evening.  That’s a sociological problem.  It’s not a health issue.  The person I just described needs to be more active.  They need to find an activity they enjoy and do it.  So I don’t get so focused on counting calories, fasting, dieting … That’s secondary.

The bigger issue is

What are the social constructs that are causing us to be unhealthy?  Nobody wants to be unhealthy or out of shape.  We see people struggle with it all the time which means that society at large is at war with our nature and there is something in the hierarchy above us that is forcing us into unhealthy lifestyles that are in direct contradiction to what we desire which is to be healthy,  feel good,  and look good.

Hayward Suggs:

When people hear the name Big Strong U, what do they take away from it? What’s the take away from the client and the people you market to?

Corey Buckner:

It’s an opportunity to be educated on how to be bigger and stronger. That’s not just physically bigger and stronger but mentally bigger and stronger.  The mental side of it is much stronger than the physical side.  This goes back to the sociological element and how we structure our lives.  I actually just recorded a video that I haven’t released yet which talks about the push and pull of fitness.  It talks about how it is easy to go to the gym.  That’s the push side of it.  You give yourself an hour a day or three days a week and you lift weights and you push yourself.  That’s the easy side of it. It’s short term. The bigger issue is what you are doing the other 23 hours of the day.

Are you focusing on the stuff that takes all day to do like watching your diet, staying active, maintaining an active social life? 

That’s an ongoing mental process where we have to constantly retrain ourselves that it’s not a treat to get off of work to go home and put our feet up.  That’s a detriment.  That’s something we do out of exhaustion because we put so much energy in every other part of our life that by the time we have personal time all we have energy to do is relax.  Big Strong U is an educator on issues like that.  Where you walk away and feel smarter and more educated about the way our health and fitness in our daily lifestyles.  So Big Strong U is a play on Big Strong University but I could never publish anything under the university status because we are not a university.  It’s a great name and it accurately portrays what it is we do, which is educate people on being bigger and stronger.

Hayward Suggs:

What was your own personal Journey?  Can you give readers some ideas to what you went though, what your experiences were, and how you got to where you are?

Corey Buckner:

For me, I was a skinny kid that was an athlete.  After my last years of athletics in high school I walked on to a college basketball team.  So I played football my entire life then I played a year of college basketball.  I quit that and that’s when I went into weight lifting.  I left that and ended up walking on to a college baseball team and that’s when I decided, before the season even started, that the part of my life that included organized sports was over.  From there I proceeded to gain 75 pounds in a very short amount of time but I didn’t really realize it.

But over time I became bigger and unhealthier.  It became more difficult for me to move around and I kept growing out of my clothes.  I realized after getting some other areas of my life in order, it was time for me to get my physical health in order.

I started running, but through it all I was always lifting weights and this is where I learned that lifting weights is not enough.  You can be strong as an ox and unhealthier than the world’s worst smoker.  Lifting weights doesn’t necessarily make you healthy.  I started walking, which eventually became running.  I realized that the more I walked and ran the better my overall health became.  I was already a vegetarian, but I started taking my diet more seriously.  I started seeing the weight come off, and that progress became a motivator for me.  I began to take step after step to improve my overall health, which then lead to me understanding the full scope of the progress.  I had to lift weights, eat right, do cardio, and maintain an active social life which included removing the highlight of my day being sitting on the couch and watching TV.  After a while I became obsessed with this, wanting to see how far I could go with this. What’s the most I can achieve?  This lead into to me trying to fit that type of fitness goal into real world situations like family life and ups and downs in employment.  After going through all of this, I felt like this was something that people needed to hear. It became a burden that I needed to share with people who were in that in between stage.  People wanting to get their lives together having life issues, issues with their families, issues with their jobs or they just got so out of shape before realizing how bad things got.

Hayward Suggs:

If you were going to tell people one major take away about what it is you do and how important it is, what would it be?

Corey Buckner:

I teach people how to live healthy, not a diet, magic pill, or potion.  I teach people how to create a flexible pattern for handling day to day business in a healthier more fit way.  Also, I give them the clothing they need to look good while they do it.

Hayward Suggs: 

How do people get in touch with you?

Corey Buckner:

Email: contact@BigStrongU.com
Twitter: @BigStrongU
Instagram: @BigStrongU
Facebook: Search “Big Strong U” 

Hayward Suggs:

Is there anything else you would like the readers to know?

Corey Buckner:

The biggest thing is how we think about what we do.  How do we process what it is that is important in life because what we process as important is what we are going to take care of.  Some people put money (which is important) or recreation as a priority. These are things that are important to us and we see how hard people work for achieve financial gain, to take that trip they always wanted to take, or get to the club on Friday night.  If we desire to look and feel better, we have to take that same mentality.  We have to be able to say 3 hours a week is more important to me than anything else.  The first step is to establish it is as important and then prioritize.  We live in a day and time where they take physical fitness out of school because it’s not as important as education, according to the social concept that we live under.  The reality is when we are spending billions in healthcare and spending money out of our pocket in ungodly sums just to insure our body, it is as important as education.   What’s the point of being a highly educated and intelligent 35 year old corpse? There is no point in that.  You want to be smart and intelligent and you want to live a long time and contribute more to society in a longer period of time with the wisdom and knowledge you have acquired over the years and the only way to do that is to keep the body healthy to carry the mind for a longer period of time.   I want to encourage people to reevaluate the low plateau that we put fitness on in modern society and raise it up and put it side by side with education, not higher, maybe a little lower. It is a component of education because if you are not fit enough to travel, stay awake, and move from place to place, you can’t do anything with the knowledge you spent the first 1/3 of your life acquiring.  You are going to die early or be too sick to do anything with your knowledge and wisdom.

Hayward Suggs:

Any parting words?

Corey:

Get Big!  Get Strong! Get Fit! Live long.  Let’s do this thing in 2017!

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